The closest we have ever got to experiencing smell in a movie is when John Waters Polyester was released in odorama and people were given scratch and sniff cards when they came to the theatre. But much like the original novel of Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, the film adaptation directed by Tom Tykwer does an amazing job of describing and presenting what the smells in the movie might be. You can sniff the stink in the air when the main character of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born into the 18th-century French fish market or when Grenouille is making perfume from some of the loveliest women youve ever seen, it is as if you can really inhale their scent. Tykwer is best known in America for his fast paced Run Lola Run and I got a chance to talk with him from the Perfume press junket.

Daniel Robert Epstein: In the novel, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, has a lot more contempt for humanity than in your movie. Did you change that because you wanted more people to relate to him?

Tom Tykwer: No. This is what happens when you dont do a page by page, word by word adaptation. This is a film that tries to stay truthful to the material but at the same time has its own take on some of the details of it. I think what [Perfume author] Patrick Sskind is trying to do is offer the main character an escape in his mind. I think all the loathing and all the contempt that the character is expressing towards humanity is just a safety net. Ultimately whats driving the character is a strong desire to be recognized and loved because he feels himself to be invisible. He fails so miserably at it because he took completely the wrong choices. In the book he decides to turn even more away from humanity and finds an excuse in his whole loathing idea but I dont think its really what he means because everything he was trying to achieve had to do with a desire to connect with people. So if he really hated those people, why even try? Its quite a complex thing that hes trying to pull off there in the novel and I never really bought it.

DRE: So it was something that you didnt believe so you changed it for your movie.

Tom: Yeah, in a way but its more the way I read it. The way I read it is that turning away from humanity is an escape system for him. Turning away from humanity when they dont want you is always better than to just accept that they dont want you.

DRE: Was having two of the most important women having red hair your idea?

Tom: [laughs] Thats in the book. Thats not my chosen obsession.

DRE: I was just going to say that red hair seems to be something that you like.

Tom: No, its really a coincidence. But I never know whether it has something to do with why I was attracted to the story. Thats possible but, if so, its completely subconscious.

DRE: Your movie is the first to be able to describe the idea of smell. Certainly the book was able to do that as well.

Tom: This is a bit of a silly answer, but Ive always said, Well what is our problem? The book doesnt smell. It is also very successful because it is a matter of the language that the book is using. So if the literature language is capable of doing something with the world of smell that is exciting and maybe overwhelming, it is a fun challenge to explore the cinematic language and see what we can do with it in order to think ourselves into the olfactory world.

DRE: I read that Dustin Hoffman approached you about being in your movie, what is that like?

Tom: Its pretty overwhelming and a little bit confusing. It was quite a while ago when he contacted me. I think he had seen Run Lola Run. I was already shooting my next film and it was somewhere in the middle of the night when somebody calls and says Theres Dustin Hoffman on the line for you. I was really like, Can you please leave me alone and let me sleep with these silly jokes? But it was really him and he was really excited about the film. Its very much in his nature to do this. Hes a complete enthusiast and hes somebody whos still so much in love with the work that hes doing. He has the energy that drives him to contact people and give them his opinion. Hes quite wonderful to be with because after such a long time in the business he enjoys it still. Thats quite energizing for everybody around.

DRE: The book Perfume is extremely popular worldwide. Was this something that youve wanted to make into a movie for a long time?

Tom: Funnily no. I never saw myself to be a bestseller director. I didnt think that I would be typical period filmmaker because I have certain issues with period films, very often at least. I feel like they present the production design and all the research that theyve done to the degree that they slow it down. They tend to show off their goods and Ive always felt that if I were to do a period movie, it should be shot in a way that it makes you feel that you are walking around in that age as if it was now. As if we were taking a camera onto a time machine and we were shooting in that period as if we were really there and not show off with all the details that we had researched and reproduced.

The other thing is that I was a little bit nervous about is that, not only is it a bestseller, but that it is a book that many people have taken to their heart and have a very intimate relationship with. It is not just one of those bestsellers that you read and thats it. So that was something I wanted to take very seriously therefore the idea was to make the most faithful adaptation with individual and subjective choices.

DRE: Do you feel that this is a character that would have been a murderer no matter what he had been born with?

Tom: No, hes not born to be a murderer. He discovers that. I dont even look at him as a murderer in the classical sense because he doesnt enjoy the killings. He doesnt commit any murder for the sake of the murder but he does it in the way that an artist does. He needs these objects for creating a greater good, which is like the ultimate object or lets say the ultimate capture of beauty. So he doesnt really relate to the victims as human beings that much. Thats quite a psychological problem but he never was born to be a murderer. I think he only comes into this situation when this first encounter with this one particular girl fails so miserably. Even that murder is not a murder that he did intentionally. It just happens. Its quite an accident, which is a change to the novel too. In the novel its not an accident.

DRE: Why that change?

Tom: You just have to treat films differently in order to get to the same result because literature has a different method of getting people involved and connecting with protagonists. We have a different set of rules in films. If certain things happen too early the audience is taken aback so much that you cant keep them on the tracks. The main challenge was to make Jean-Baptiste Grenouille the protagonist and the hero of the story even though he goes down a path that we dont necessarily agree with.

DRE: The ending of the movie makes the film feel very unreal.

Tom: It felt very real to shoot I must say.

DRE: How many actors did you have at the orgy?

Tom: We had sometimes more than 800 people. We didnt shoot a couple of people and then reproduce them with CGI or something. We did it the real long way with rehearsing a huge amount of people and getting them slowly into understanding the idea of the whole sequence. Then I worked with a Spanish dance theater group from Spain. We developed a method to build around a group of the dance members and then we added all kinds of people from all kinds of businesses to make it work. We had many extras and shot it for over a week.

DRE: Do you feel that up until that point the film is based in reality?

Tom: Yeah, even that whole sequence is something where you we wanted it to feel as real as possible. But first, this movie doesnt work without a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. You cant really follow it if youre not ready to do the things the movie expects of you. You have to buy into the idea that you even can extract or distill the essence of human beings and then create a perfume off of it and that if you could do that, then that would probably be the result. But at the same time it is just the logical conclusion of the events that happen. We had some tiny moments in there before such as when he meets this guy who doesnt like him at all and then he has some remains of some of the first victims on his hand and that turns this guy around. So now it is the logical conclusion with 12 girls plus the 13th. It is super essence.

DRE: I know Patrick Sskind is somewhat of a recluse but did you deal with him?

Tom: I met him but hes very reclusive and he did absolutely nothing for the project. He had written it for five years and then has lived with for 15 years since then. He was very nice and very polite. He wished me very much good luck and said, But please, leave me alone.

DRE: What do you like about SuicideGirls so much?

Tom: Oh, I just like it. Its one of my regular visits.

DRE: Do you want a free membership?

Tom: No, I want to support you. Im not a poor man. Im not all that rich but I can afford it. So its ok.